Cigarette butt litter

Butt Out Bondi

Chalk art on the promenade, street performers, posters, bus ads and rangers patrolling the beach. These are just a few of our efforts to spread the word that smoking is banned on our beaches.

3D Chalk Art

Check out this lapse video and see this mural being created.

3D Chalk Art Chalk Art

This mural shows an issue that many beach users feel strongly about: young children playing with the discarded butts.

Waterheads Street Perfomers

The Waterheads street performers created a stir strolling along the beach. This sort of activity reaches non-English speaking visitors too. 

 

Enforcement

Rangers patrol the beach to enforce the ban, and posters have been placed in backpackers, cafes and bars in Bondi.

Ads and Promotion

Cigarette Butt Myths

courtesy of Butt Free Australia

Cigarette butts are biodegradable

FALSE:
Filters may look like cotton, but they are actually made of plastic filaments. These are made from a type of plastic called cellulose acetate, which degrades very slowly – anywhere between 2 months and 15 years, depending on exposure to air and water.


Cigarette butts are dangerous and polluting

TRUE:
Cigarette filters are specifically designed to accumulate particulate smoke components, including toxic chemicals such as cadmium, lead, arsenic and zinc. Littered butts leach these chemicals as they decompose, contributing to soil and water pollution and impacting on wildlife habitat.
The tendency of young children to put objects in their mouths, as well as the many animals which mistake butts for food, means that butts in parks and on beaches are a health hazard for people and wildlife alike. 

Cigarette butts are only small, so throwing them away doesn’t matter

FALSE:
4.5 trillion butts are littered worldwide each year and nearly one in every two litter items is a cigarette butt.

One in ten are estimated to make their way into our waterways, and considering they contain arsenic and lead, this is especially alarming.

What butts lack in size they make up for in number, so please don’t smoke on the sand this summer!